Fear of Bicycles album review

[ShergoldSnickers]

Our keyboard player just sent me this. He's trying to get a physical copy of the magazine to find out precisely what 'Beat' magazine is/does/looks like. Bear with it....

[b]The Review[/b]
Before you've even slipped this on your CD player, you might be worried by the sleeve note information that 'all tracks were recorded as improvised, warts and all, and edited down to manageable proportions' – and timings indicate that four of the 10 instrumentals go beyond the 10 minute mark.
If you need to cling to a category, then perhaps FoB roam the most distant reaches of jazz rock, but there's more of a kinship with The Spontaneous Music Ensemble, The People Band and like avant gardeners who were omnipresent in the myriad Arts Labs that pocked Britain circa 1968 – not to mention Gong, Henry Cow, Faust and other art terrorists who still provoke the question, 'How could anyone like this stuff?'
It must be confessed that for a long while after their album came into my possession, FoB hovered as an uneasy and sometimes impenetrable background noise. Indeed, it was almost the sound at any given moment that counted more than individual pieces until I found myself absorbing and replaying the ilk of 'The Price of Vincent', 'Eine Kleine Not Musik', and 'Untitled' in a knowing, nodding sort of way. Give it a chance, and 'This is Not a CD' might be eating away at you.

Alan Clayson
[b](Review ends)[/b]

A very fair review – we don't pretend that we'll ever be anything other than a very niche product. We aren't after the instant gratification of well crafted and arranged material that makes it's point with aplomb in under 4 minutes. We simply can't hope to do it as well as so many others, so we don't try. We do try to do material that we enjoy playing and that grows on you, over time. Even then, we recognise that will be a forlorn hope with many.

Edited October 20, 2010 by ShergoldSnickers